Chapter 21 A Bevy of Girls by L. T. Meade
Nurse Comforter
When Betty had left her, Pen sat very still in the hammock where she had perched herself. Once or twice she swung herself backwards and forwards, but most times she sat motionless. She had come to the first real grave problem in her young life. She had always been a careless, never-may-care, somewhat untidy, reckless little girl. She had had no special training. Being the youngest she had been petted now and then, and scolded now and then; fussed over occasionally, bullied occasionally; allowed to grow up in any sort of fashion. She had had some sort of teachers, but they had never had much influence over her. Nurse Richardson thought more of her than of all the other girls, for was she not her darling, her baby? Her father, too, was fond of pinching her rosy cheeks, and calling her his little dear, or his little pet, just as fancy took him. Her elder sisters made her their messenger, and partly their slave. She did not mind; she was contented. She had a few friends, but not any very special ones. When Nesta and her sisters had come to stay at Court Prospect during their great trouble, Pen had at first taken warmly to Nesta; but she was tired of her now. She had never liked Flossie Griffiths, and Flossie was really Nesta’s friend.
As to the affair of the sovereign, Pen had made a bet without giving it a serious consideration. She had never for one moment supposed that Nesta considered it a serious affair. Then Pen had begun to long to be grown up like her sisters, to wear dresses which would cover her somewhat ungainly feet, to walk about with boys, and to receive compliments from them; never to do any tiresome French or German, or any unpleasant practising on the school-room piano, or any grammar, or any English history, or any of those things which she called school work, and hated accordingly. She wanted these things to cease, and she hoped to have a right good time when Clay and Mabel and Annie wore getting passée. She considered that Clay would be quite passée when she was one and twenty, and by that time surely Pen, who would be about seventeen, would be in her first charming bloom.
By this it will be seen that Pen was quite an ordinary little girl, but she was a girl with a conscience. She had inherited a sturdy sense of honour from her father, who was a good business man, and Pen, had circumstances been different, might have been a good business woman. He had won his present enviable position by the strongest code of honour; he had piled up his gold without injuring any man. To be honest—honest at any cost—was his motto, and he had instilled these ideas into his sons, and had talked about them in the presence of his daughters. The elder girls had never listened, but Pen had. Her conscience now was stirred to its depths. Nothing but fear would have kept her from confessing the truth. She struggled hard with herself for some time.
It was the middle of the day, however, and Nurse Richardson, after many fruitless searches, found Pen just at the time when luncheon was to be served. She pounced upon the little girl, and took her hand somewhat roughly.
“There now,” she said, “a nice state of things you have been and gone and done. I’ve been the whole morning searching for you. Why, Miss Clara said you were that feverish and sore-throaty and head-achy as never was. Why, what has come to you, Miss Pen? What’s wrong?”
Pen sprang from the hammock, ran up to old Richardson, and embraced her.
“I’m not a bit head-achy, nor a bit sore-throaty, nor a bit of anything, but just that I didn’t want to go,” she said.
“And you made up all that story?”
“I’d rather stay with you, nursey,” said Pen, rubbing her cheek against the old woman’s.
Nurse was by no means a strict moralist; she was soothed by Pen’s attitude.
“Then you will come right in and have a beautiful little bit of dinner,” she said. “Roast duck and green peas, and afterwards a plum tart, and cream and peaches.”
Pen was, notwithstanding her perturbation of mind, somewhat hungry.
“And you’ll have it up in the old nursery with me,” said Richardson.
“All right, nursey, if you’ll eat your dinner with me.”
“If you don’t mind, my pretty.”
“Mind?” said Pen. “I’d love it.”
For the time she was in quite good spirits. She went into the house with the old nurse. They visited the nursery, and the dinner in question was soon brought on the board, and the two ate with hearty good appetite.
“I’m that relieved that you ain’t a bit sore-throaty nor head-achy,” said the nurse.
“No. I’m as right as possible,” said Pen, “as well as possible,” she repeated. “It isn’t that.”
“You’ll go to-morrow? Miss Clara was in a state.”
“I don’t know—I don’t know when I’ll go.”
Having satisfied her appetite her nervous fears began again.
“I want to go back to the garden—I want to be alone,” she said.
But as she was leaving the room she turned.
“Where’s Betty?” she said.
“Betty, the bad little thing! To think of her doing it,” said nurse.
“Oh, nursey, do you think she did it?”
“You have heard, then, my pet?”
“Yes, I have heard.”
“Of course, she done it,” said the nurse. “Who else would? All of us old trusted servants, and she just fresh in the place. But I’ve heard before now that the Wren family are just about—well, to say the least of it, not all they might be. She’ll have to go back to Mrs Wren.”
“What sort of a woman is Mrs Wren?” asked Penelope.
“Oh, a decent body enough; but they do say the husband was a poacher. Well, he’s dead, and Betty’s the eldest of the family. She wouldn’t have got in here if I hadn’t spoke for her, and I’m ashamed of her, that I am.”
“Nursey, I do wish you’d tell father that you know she hasn’t done it, and beg and beseech of him not to send her away.”
“I, tell the master that?” said nurse, holding up her hands. “Much good it would be. He’d say back to me—‘Nurse, who has done it? Until I find out who has done it, I shall suspect Betty Wren and Betty Wren must go out of the house. If she confesses I may forgive her, but if she sticks to it that she hasn’t done it, out she goes, and without a character.’ That’s the master all over, and I must say he’s about right. A thief ought to be punished awfully severe.”
Pen went and stood by the window.
“I believe I have a bit of a headache,” she said, after a pause. “I’ll just go down to the garden and sit there in the shade. What time is father coming back, nurse?”
“I suppose the usual time, about six. He’ll be took up to see you, and he’ll be pleased enough, I take it. You may as well stay with him now until next Saturday, when I understand he is going to join the young ladies.”
Pen made no reply to this. When she got into the passage she gave a deep sigh. When would Jim be back? Why had he not answered her letter? She passed his room, the door was ajar, but she did not go in this time. Jim was faithless, he was no better than the others. Indeed, he was worse. He had promised to help her, and then had not done so.
She went into the garden and chose a shady seat under a tree, took up a book which she could not read, and then pressed her hand to her eyes.
Perhaps she had fallen asleep; at any rate she found herself sitting bolt upright, and gazing straight before her. A great trembling took possession of her, and just for a moment she did not know what had happened. But coming down the path to meet her, was some one who looked very like a vision—some one slender, marvellously graceful, and all in white; a white dress, a white hat, everything white. The hat was tilted back from a broad brow, and the dark hair under it was rendered darker by the shade of the hat, and the eyes were large and misty and very beautiful, and the face was pale. The girl, for Pen soon discovered that it was only a girl, and not an angel, hurried when she saw Pen, and went towards her with outstretched hand. Pen rose, confused and puzzled.
“Don’t you know me? I have seen you before. I am Angela St. Just. May I sit down for a little?”
“Oh, please do,” said Pen. How delighted Clay would be! How overpowered Mabel would be! Even Annie would be confused, and a little off her guard; but Pen was not confused, nor off her guard in the least. “Would you like the hammock?” she said, “or this seat? The hammock is most comfortable.”
“I will take the seat,” said the young lady.
She leant back and looked across the garden.
“That is our tennis lawn,” said Pen, pointing in the distance. “It used to be the old garden, with the queer dragons and beasts and birds cut out of the box trees. Doesn’t it make a beautiful tennis lawn? Wouldn’t you like to see it? Clay is so proud of it.”
“No, I shouldn’t like to see it,” said Angela very gently.
She turned those misty, unfathomable eyes of hers towards the little girl.
“Don’t you understand,” she said impulsively, and she laid her slender hand on Pen’s arm, “that the old garden was more to me than the tennis lawn is to you?” Pen felt a vague, very vague sort of flutter at her heart. She did not know that she understood, but she felt puzzled and uneasy.
“Why have you come here to-day?” was her next question.
“I am waiting for my friend, Marcia Aldworth. I hope to take her back with me to-night—that is if Mrs Aldworth’s mind is relieved.”
“But what has happened?” said Pen. “Is Mrs Aldworth ill again?”
“Not exactly, but she is anxious. Perhaps you can tell us something. It is Nesta.”
“What about Nesta?” asked Pen.
“She cannot be found. Since early this morning no one has seen her. They are searching for her everywhere, and are making inquiries, but no one knows anything about her. Mrs Aldworth hasn’t been told exactly what has happened, but she particularly misses Nesta, and dear Marcia will not be able to come to me unless Nesta turns up. Do you know anything about her?”
“No,” said Pen, a little wearily. She was not deeply interested in Nesta, nor particularly interested in Mrs Aldworth.
“I half hoped you might, or some of you. You were so kind to the Aldworths when they were in such trouble about their mother.”
“No, I wasn’t kind,” said Pen abruptly, “I didn’t like them.”
Angela did not smile; she looked grave.
“Still, I don’t know why you came here?” was Pen’s next remark.
“Your sister wanted me to come; she invited me, and I thought I would come to see her. Is she at home?”
“I’m the only one at home. They have all gone to Whitby to have a spree. I didn’t want to go.”
“But why? You are the youngest, are you not?”
“Yes, I’m the youngest.”
“Why didn’t you want to go?”
Pen coloured. There was nothing at all inquisitive in the visitor’s voice, but there was a note of sympathy in it as though in some indescribable, marvellous way she could guess that Pen was in trouble, and that Pen had something on her mind that was worrying her a good deal. Insensibly Pen drew a little nearer to the white-robed visitor.
“I say,” she exclaimed, “shall I tell you what I thought you were when I saw you coming down the path?”
“What?” asked Angela.
“Well, perhaps I had been asleep, I can’t quite tell, but I opened my eyes with a start, and there was an angel coming along; I really thought for a minute that you were an angel; and that is your name, isn’t it?”
“Angela is my name.”
“Now that I come to look at you more closely, Angela,” said Pen, bringing out the word without the slightest hesitation, “I think you are very like an angel. Have you ever seen them?”
“I have never seen them, but I have often thought about them.”
“I don’t quite know why you are different from others,” said Pen. “It’s that far-away sort of look, and yet it isn’t the far-away look—you are different, anyhow.”
Angela laid her hand again on Pen’s arm.
“Tell me your name,” she said.
“Pen, Penelope.”
“Penelope, what a grand old name. Have you got that wonderful perseverance that the real Penelope had? Will you be as faithful as she was?”
But Pen did not know the story of the real Penelope, nor did she ask. Angela’s hand seemed to draw her in some marvellous way.
“Look at me,” said Angela very gravely. “I must go in a few minutes. I wonder why I came to you instead of going straight to the front door. Your servant would have sent me away. But as I drew up my ponies at the front entrance, I saw a girl in the garden, and I thought I could bear this visit to the old place best if I came across the garden and spoke to the girl. And do you know, what is more, I hoped the girl would be you?”
“Did you?” said Pen, her black eyes dancing with a look of intense pleasure.
“I did, for you have such an honest face.”
“No, no; if you knew you wouldn’t say that. You wouldn’t speak to me. Angels would have nothing to do with me; but I can’t help it—oh, why did you come?”
“Tell me, dear; tell me.”
Pen struggled and struggled. Give herself away to this girl, to Angela St. Just, whom all the neighbourhood worshipped from afar; tell this girl what she had done? She could not! But just as little as though Angela were a real angel could Pen withstand the matchless sympathy which Angela could throw into her voice, with which she could fill her eyes, with which she could wrap the sore heart of the puzzled little sufferer.
“It was Jim,” said Pen at last in a stricken voice. “Jim—he’s my brother; he’s not a bit like others. Jim has thoughts, you know, thoughts, and he is splendid, and full of honour. He said he would help me out. He promised faithfully, but he went away, he went to a place called The Chase, to some people of the name of Holroyd. He went quite suddenly. I had a talk with him one evening, and I told him; and he said there was only one thing to do, and he’d put it right, and be with me when I did it. But he’s away. Oh dear, oh dear!”
“Was the thing you had to do very difficult?”
“Awfully. But oh, Angela, you don’t know.”
It never occurred to Pen to call this fascinating visitor by any other name.
“I am sure I can partly guess; it is exceedingly difficult for any one to own himself or herself in the wrong, and we all do wrong at times. Your brother must be a very nice boy.”
“Oh, he’s grand, only I don’t know why he forsook me.”
“Tell me more. I think I must have been guided to go down the garden path and have a talk with you.”
“But you will never speak to me again.”
“Does that really matter, Penelope? The one thing for you to do is to put wrong right.”
“I will tell you more,” said Penelope suddenly.
“You won’t always be in the house to stare at me as Clay would do, and as Mabel and Annie would do, thinking that perhaps I’d do it again, and always taunting me with it. Oh, no, you won’t be there.”
“Only in spirit, and my spirit will be very tender, and full of love to you.”
“Love to me?” said Pen.
“Of course, Penelope. Can you doubt it?”
Penelope could not look in those eyes, which were full of matchless love, eyes such as she had never before encountered. She burst into a torrent of tears, struggled with her emotions, and finally laid her curly head with its wealth of red-gold hair on Miss St. Just’s white dress. The slender hand touched the head once or twice, but Pen was allowed to cry until the pain in her heart was eased a little.
“It was this way,” she said, and then she told her story.
“I spoke to Jim first, I was driven to it, and—and Nesta was so persistent. But I don’t want to excuse myself.”
“I wouldn’t,” said Angela, “for of course you have no excuse.”
Her words were perfectly gentle, perfectly firm. Pen looked up at her.
“Ah,” she said, “you and my conscience say the same thing.”
“I hope so; your conscience is sure to tell you the right thing.”
“Well, anyhow, I told Jim, and Jim agreed with me. He said there was only one thing to do. Only, you see, it was like this; he had promised to help me, and he didn’t. He went away instead. I wrote to him, and he took no notice of my letter, no notice at all. I know he must have got it, and I couldn’t speak, although I tried. Then Saturday came, and father has discovered all about the lost sovereign, and Clay said he was in a thundering rage, quite wild with rage. She said he was fit to kill any one who had done it, and he accuses Betty, our new under-housemaid, Betty Wren is her name, and of course, Betty is innocent. He says unless she confesses she will be sent away; that’s quite awful. I don’t know how I am to tell him; I can’t imagine how I am to do it, for he’ll half kill me, and I shall die, die, if Betty Wren is sent away. Oh, I am so frightened. I wish Jim were here. What shall I do?”
“You must do this,” said Angela, “you must give your fears to God, he will take care of them, and of you. You must not think of what your father will do, you must simply think of what is right. The very moment he comes in you must go and tell him what you have told me, that in a moment of impulse you took the money, that afterwards you were afraid to tell him, that all the week von have been frightened, that this morning your fears kept you away from him, but that now you wish him to know the truth, and he—but never mind about him; he must know the truth.”
“I can’t, Angela, I can’t. Oh, if only Jim were here!”
“Do you think I should do instead of Jim?”
“You?” exclaimed Penelope. “Oh, Angela! Angela!”